Catherine spoke yesterday during a Westminster Hall debate on Further Education colleges in the North East, discussing the work of Newcastle College – and particularly the Aviation Academy, which is based in Newcastle North – funding cuts, apprenticeships and concerns about the new apprenticeship levy. You can read her speech below, and a full transcript of yesterday’s debate can be found here.

Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab): I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) on securing the debate, given the vital role played by Further Education in our region, which my hon. Friends have amply set out. I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute, because on Friday I met the new principal of Newcastle College, Tony Lewin, at the college’s Aviation Academy, which is based at Newcastle International Airport in my constituency and ably led by former RAF engineer Tim Jacklin.

The Aviation Academy is just one of a wide range of world-class facilities at Newcastle College, including the Energy, Chefs, Construction, Healthcare, Lifestyle and Performance Academies, as well as the Rail Academy, which has already been mentioned. I like to think of the Aviation Academy as one of the college’s flagship operations, not only because it is in my constituency but because the facilities offered to learners are second to none. Students come from across the North of England to undertake FE courses in areas such as airport operations, cabin crew operations, aeronautical engineering, aviation operations and aerospace engineering. Some of them go on to take a foundation degree in aeronautical engineering or even an honours degree in aircraft engineering, operated in partnership with Kingston University.

Many of the courses are run in conjunction with high-profile names from the aviation industry, including Jet2 and Swissport, ensuring that the Academy is delivering the skills that industry needs. Indeed, such are the facilities – including the academy’s very own fully functional Boeing 737, and workshops kitted out with latest hydraulics, landing gear, pneumatics and electrical and electronic equipment – that people come from across the world to undertake the courses. Current students come from as far afield as Mozambique, Namibia and the Maldives.

Of course, all that is being provided at a time of great uncertainty for the FE sector, which has too often been afforded very limited time to plan properly or strategically, as a result of budget cuts imposed by the Government over recent months and years at unacceptably short notice. I will not repeat all that has been said in the debate – my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Kevan Jones) made a powerful case for the innovative approach taken by North East colleges, as did other hon. Members – but it is worth reflecting on the open letter sent to the Prime Minister ahead of last year’s Spending Review by 128 FE colleges across the country that stated:

‘Late and unexpectedly large reductions in annual funding allocations…make it increasingly difficult to plan ahead with any certainty. Significant funding cuts for the 2015-16 academic year were announced in March 2015 with a further round of cuts announced in July. The cuts applied immediately from 1 August 2015. The uncertainty this creates means colleges cannot invest in their staff, effectively plan their curriculum, and meet the needs of the local economy and communities which they serve. It has become almost impossible to plan ahead and work meaningfully with other agencies and partners who rely on us to deliver their education, training and skills requirements.’

That is a serious concern for any part of the country, but surely more so for the North East, which continues to have the highest rate of unemployment anywhere in the country by some margin.

Of course, one of the key ways in which the North East FE sector is supporting our regional economy is through apprenticeships. Indeed, the proportion of North East colleges’ adult education budget used for apprenticeships is higher – at 41% – than in any other region. I welcome any growth in the number of high-quality, meaningful apprenticeships because, as hon. Members may recall, one of the first things I did after being elected to this place in 2010 was to introduce a Bill to make better use of our public procurement system to deliver apprenticeship places. It was therefore with a wry smile that I read the Cabinet Office’s new procurement policy note, published in August last year, which clearly states that:

‘central Government procurement contracts with a full life value of over £10 million and a duration of over 12 months should be used to support skills development and delivery of the apprenticeship commitment’ –

particularly as I was told again and again by coalition Ministers that what I wanted could not possibly be done because of EU law.

Yet there is further uncertainty for colleges, among others, about apprenticeships. Newcastle College wants to take an active role in the delivery of apprenticeships through the new apprenticeship levy. However, despite the Government’s proposal for the levy to be operational from April 2017, in just one year’s time, the college is concerned about the continued lack of detail on how the initiative will work in practice. One can see why the scheme will be attractive to large firms, which can offset their apprenticeship costs against their levy payment; and, of course, the Government claim that only 2% of firms -those with an annual wage bill of more than £3 million – will have to pay the levy in the first place. So, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Iain Wright) asked, what about those smaller firms who will not pay the levy? How will they access funding for the programme, and will they be able to do so in a way that is not mired in bureaucracy that will put them off? After all, such businesses currently deliver more than 90% of apprenticeships in the country, yet FE Week reported 11 days ago that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills just cannot clarify the issue.

Other questions remain, including how Ministers will ensure that, instead of a race to the bottom, the new system will create a race for quality apprenticeships – quantity over quality is a big risk – what will happen to potential apprentices who cannot be matched with an employer; what happens to the funding for apprentices where a firm terminates an apprenticeship part-way through; and how the Government will prevent a dip in apprenticeship numbers while firms wait to see how the new plans pan out.

For colleges such as Newcastle, for SMEs and, most importantly, for should-be apprentices across the country, I implore the Minister to make the details of the scheme available without delay, so that colleges and businesses have the lead-in time to plan properly for the changes ahead.